Vanaire : Take Two
by Scraggles
Summary: Lightning comes in a variety of colors. When an author uses the same prompt again, what will it mean for this unlikely pairing? Vanaire challengefic, based on the same prompt as the one before it. Contains mild yuri. Don't like? Feel free to flame!


**Hi all. Just another request I'd been forwarded with the same prompt. Anyway, I got to writing and this is how it came out. Pretty different, eh? **

**The prompt was Vanille being useless and getting in the way of Lightning in a battle (actually shown or not) and then something unexpected happening afterward, thus resulting in probable cause for yuri. Take it or leave it. ;b**

**Enjoy, if at all possible.**

**Update: I fixed some small typos and added some missing words that were somehow deleted during my transcription of this to paper. I'm not a native English speaker, so bear with me here. My apologies for not spotting them sooner.  
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Vanille feels the faint brush of a hand against her thigh as Lightning steps past her, deflecting a blast from the Cie'th before them. She feels too, the rush of blood to her head when she realizes what's happened. She can't move; with Lightning at the forefront, Vanille is just a clown, a scarecrow, immobilized and baking in the sun.

Her blade is an instrument of constant destruction. She swings left and right, utterly overwhelming the enemy. They fall like flies before her might, while Vanille is left behind, practically a statue. Two of the brutes are left, soon to be one, then zero. It's almost as if the others don't exist. She touches a finger to the spot, trying to fill the void left by the soldier's touch. Her rod clatters to the ground.

_It was just an accident, _she thinks hastily, no - desperately, _She was only trying to save you, so what if she **accidentally** bumped into you? No reason to be nervous, it wasn't on purpose- surely it wasn't, right? No reason to think otherwise, definitely. There wasn't any room for her to move, so she couldn't have meant to do it; yes, that's perfectly reasonable!_

Her thoughts are interrupted as Lightning thwarts another creature's attempt to kill her, slicing its arm off in mid-step. That action in itself, was unreasonable, she notes, and watches the dumb animal scream in vain as it is quickly finished off, its body vanishing in a puff of smoke. She hasn't moved a muscle. The cycle continues.

_See? She didn't touch you that time. That counts for something doesn't it? Besides, Fang touched you all the time back on Pulse, didn't she? _She answered her own question, _Well, that's different- but the point is, Lightning's only trying to keep you alive... Maybe you should move so she doesn't have to._

Vanille smiles at the idea and springs forward - right into Lightning's path. She braces for impact to no avail, as she gets the worst of the ordeal. They crash to the ground in a tangle of limbs, Lightning on top, affording Vanille a full view of the Cie'th approaching them, hauling their massive bodies forward with the intent to kill. The chest thrust against her face as they continue to tumble earthbound isn't quick enough to cover up that fact.

Vanille remembers the look of surprise on Lightning's features as they flew towards one-another, the air of unreadiness, fear, and perhaps worry, but for whose sake? She finds herself wondering that, if only to distract herself from the matter at hand. Her life is flashing before her eyes. They're still moving, but not for long. As they skitter to a stop, Vanille discovers that she's forgotten to breathe, and with that discovery, also comes the scent of lavender; strawberries, and the sight of a blue mass of animated rock, looming over them. She opens her mouth to scream, but nothing comes out, so she closes her eyes and waits for death. It never comes.

Lightning's gunblade is on the other side of a crystal spire, out of reach, so she doesn't make the attempt to grope for it. The woman doesn't even seem to care how her hip is flush against Vanille's crotch as she flings their bodies away from the hulking beast, nor that the red-head's cheeks are burning a bright crimson by the time Snow manages to kill the thing, knowing that if not for her, they both surely would have been dead. She removes herself from the the shorter girl unceremoniously, brushing off crystalline dust from the fall. Though, in Vanille's mind, the contact is much shorter than it should have been.

"Go on without me. I'll catch up later," the soldier tells the others when the scuffle is over, waving them off. They protest at first, but she insists, and Vanille fears for her life as they leave. She can't help but feel completely and utterly alone. She's afraid. Footsteps echo in her mind, but the only sound is her heartbeat, high in her throat.

_This is it, _Vanille thinks. Her mind is racing, and the only thing she can focus on is trying not to scream. She knows this last mistake is going to be the death of her, but she doesn't want the others to hear something like that after what they've been through. Keeping secrets from them is bad enough.

_Sorry Fang . . I guess you won't find me after all. Promise you won't miss me too much, _she thinks as a dying wish, and clenches her fists at her sides, forcing herself to look at Lightning. She can't.

She cringes as the woman gets close, expecting to be hacked into pieces, but nothing happens. When Vanille opens her eyes again, she's terrified; Calloused fingers brush her cheek, trailing down to the small of her back. Vanille feels as if her chest could explode, and she's being . . cradled?

_Is she worried about me?_ She wonders. She knows she should've been long dead by now. She _knows._

A smooth porcelain arm curls its way around her midriff, bringing her closer to the taller woman. Her head rests in the crook of Lightning's arm, and Lightning is watching her with one of the strangest looks she's ever seen. Vanille knows that face, the one she put on before Serah turned into an oversized figurine. She's talking to her, but to Vanille, it's like she's speaking a foreign language. She hears her name somewhere along the line, but the blood coursing through her veins is enough to drown out all the noise in the world. She doesn't know what's wrong with her, but she feels limp, like her entire body is falling asleep.

"Are you okay?" she asks, and Vanille feels her heart catching in her throat. She doesn't know why, but for one reason or another, she can't breathe. No, Vanille definitely isn't okay, not in the slightest. Lightning's eyes widen when she doesn't respond. "Vanille?" she repeats worriedly, trying to shake the life back into her. Vanille wishes she _could_ move, rather than being a useless rag-doll. She wants to, but there's nothing the can do about it. Lightning's eyes widen and her mouth drops. Vanille's belly curdles as a hand hovers over her mouth. She wishes she could escape. She knows what Lightning's doing, and yet she can't even close her eyes to get away from it. She doesn't _want_ to know.

Rough fingers pinch her nose shut as Lightning pushes her body flat to the ground's crystalline surface. She wishes she could gasp – anything to let her know that she was still alive. She wants this to be voluntary, honestly, but all hope of this is ripped away as another set of fingers pries her mouth open, as if it wasn't gaping widely enough beforehand, but suddenly, Vanille is stunned. Lightning hesitates, hovering over her. Vanille can feel her breathing against her neck and face, panicked and hard. She's shaking, barely an inch away from her. It's enough to make her blush.

She blinks as her lips meet the pinkette's softly, and hot breath forces its way down her throat. Her mind wants to fizzle and burn away at the touch, but she does the only thing that she can do to stop the madness. Yes, as if the scene wasn't already embarrassing enough, Vanille's arms spring into action with all the energy of a retarded sheep, wrapping around Lightning and pulling her in closer than she would have otherwise wanted. She savors the contact for as long as she can manage, gasping for air at the very last second and watching the trail of saliva dip and sway between them before dissentigrating.

_She kissed Lightning._ When all is said and done, the realization slams into her conscious like a ton of bricks to the belly, the singular notion of impending death being the only represented idea in the midst of her mind. For once, the beautiful Farron is the one who cannot breathe. When she comes back down to reality, she jerks back, hard, effectively throwing the younger girl on top of her, and worse still, pressing them together even more so, and all she can ask is, "Why?"

But Vanille has no answer – none at all. She can hardly think, hardly breathe, hardly manage to keep her throbbing heart beneath her collar, and it's all she can do to keep from doing it again.

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**Fin.**

**Okay, so as the second installment in the Light x Van or (Vanaire) prompt series that I may or may not be completing, due to the variety of prompts that I'll be getting is finished. What do you think? Should I keep going?  
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